With globalization, business teams are no longer confined within a single city or country or culture.There is a trend nowadays whereby companies employ a variety of professionals who come from different backgrounds, having different ideologies and styles of communicating. While it is important to take advantage of such diversity, it can lead to differences among them, which may in turn affect their ability to conduct business.
It is here that CQ coaching plays an important role. CQ coaching is not only a sensitivity training program or a means of complying with a regulatory requirement. It is a systematic intervention based on scientific research that teaches individuals and teams how to make use of differences between cultures to achieve positive outcomes.
What Is Cultural Intelligence?
The definition of Cultural Intelligence states that it is the capacity of a person to be successful while working in different countries, different races, and in different organizational cultures. The concept was first introduced by academic scholars, Christopher Earley and Soon Ang, in 2003. As opposed to emotional intelligence, which applies to all individuals, CQ is culture-specific.
The concept of CQ is based on four elements:
- CQ Drive – willingness to work with people of other cultures
- CQ Knowledge – knowledge about the differences between cultures in terms of values, norms, and practices
- CQ Strategy – capacity for planning and self-reflection during cross-cultural interaction
- CQ Action – ability to modify actions to fit into new social situations
The process of CQ coaching involves personal development of all four elements.
Breaking Down Communication Barriers
One of the most obvious advantages that can be expected from CQ coaching within multicultural teams is the great improvement in day-to-day communication. Miscommunication between cultures is not often due to issues with language, but is usually caused by different approaches when it comes to communication style, directness, non-verbal messages, and silence.
Take, for example, an individual from Japan, whose refusal consists of not uttering “no” to the person who makes requests, whereas a counterpart from Germany takes any non-verbal message other than clear “yes” as an acceptance. With cultural coaching, however, such misunderstandings will be avoided because CQ coaching creates common ground for discussing cultural differences without negative connotations.
Strengthening Team Cohesion and Trust
Teamwork cannot exist without trust; however, there are totally different ways in which this essential characteristic is developed among various cultures. The trust among team members can be established through the performance of tasks and the ability to perform them successfully, whereas in other cultures, trust should first be established in interpersonal relationships in order for teamwork to occur.
However, if the team members do not realize these two totally different ways of developing mutual trust, then they may think of their colleagues as distant and untrustworthy. However, in fact, they simply apply their own cultural logic in everything that they do.There remains ample space in CQ coaching for both of these methods to exist together and foster deep relationships.
Improvement of Creativity and Innovation During Problem Solving
One should keep in mind that creative thinking is the greatest strength of a multicultural team. The fact is that, if individuals utilize diverse cultural perspectives when addressing various challenges, they generate more choices than would have been achieved otherwise. Nevertheless, such a result cannot be achieved automatically – there must be a safe environment where diversity is appreciated, and not the dominant opinion prevails.
CQ coaching can be considered an essential means of stimulating innovation. It helps employees understand the benefits they receive from various cultural perspectives and thus enables constructive communication. Diverse groups always show better results compared to uniform ones while dealing with difficult and creative challenges, but only in case they are involved in inclusive activities.
Reducing Conflict and Unconscious Bias
A certain level of conflict within multicultural teams cannot be avoided; however, the key factor lies in the way such conflict will be managed – constructively or subconsciously. It is interesting that most conflicts between people from different cultures arise not because of malice but due to a subconscious stereotype, an inherent assumption that we make about someone simply because of his or her ethnicity.
It becomes clear why CQ training should involve direct addressing to these stereotypes. Instead of blaming members for their biases, CQ training enables them to become aware of the origin of such stereotypes, their subconscious nature, and ways of checking and correcting them. Once all team members pass through CQ training together, they create certain norms of interaction regarding culture-related issues.
Improving Leadership Effectiveness Across Borders
Coaching with CQ becomes particularly important for leaders dealing with multicultural teams. The idea of leadership in itself is a culturally laden term – whatever works for one culture can be disastrous for another. Hierarchical tendencies, feedback practices, decision-making, and meetings all tend to differ based on cultural settings.
The leader with CQ will never sacrifice his personal leadership style but rather will use it skillfully in accordance with the cultural setting. It is up to him to decide when he needs to speak up and when he needs to find common ground, when he should speak candidly and when his candor may come off as arrogance, and when he needs to provide feedback in such a way as to motivate his subordinates.
Creating a Culture of Continuous Learning
The mindset change that results from CQ coaching may be one of its most significant benefits. The perspective that cultural differences should be managed and minimized is replaced by the view that differences can serve as a valuable resource that is ever-changing and always worthy of exploration.
Obviously, the change will not happen overnight, but through CQ coaching, it can be made possible. Through this kind of coaching, the individuals will be able to adopt an attitude towards cultural differences as a challenge to discover something new instead of assuming things, examine their own cultural assumptions, and deal with people who have a totally different way of seeing the world.
Conclusion
The current era of globalization is perhaps even more multicultural than any other period we have known till now, and chances are that the trend is going to become more pronounced in the future. Organizations that choose to engage in CQ training do so not because it is fashionable, but because they actually intend to create multicultural teams of competent members capable of producing innovations.
While CQ training can definitely make life easier when it comes to overcoming challenges involved with intercultural collaboration, it also has the potential to make you use differences between people as a means of gaining an edge. CQ training assists in the development of personal as well as intercultural competence and knowledge.